Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons

Everything about this soup is just heavenly. The soup itself is slightly spicy from the pepper flakes, a little creamy from the Greek yogurt, smoky from the roasted peppers and fire roasted tomatoes, and hearty from the pureed vegetables. It is literally perfect! And the grilled cheese croutons just give it that little extra salty, cheesy bite.

I am really excited about this recipe…it has the base of an absolutely perfect tomato soup but with a twist from adding roasted red peppers. Which, by the way, are sooo delicious. Amazing, magical little pepper elves sneak into the oven and completely transform them into a soft, sweet, rich vegetable while you are looking away. That is the most logical explanation in my opinion… So when you puree the peppers into the soup, they add so much extra flavor and depth.

Lets just break this soup down a little bit…first of all, you start with the classic mirepoix of carrots, onions, and celery, which gives the soup an amazing base of flavor. Then you add garlic…obviously…and some chicken/veggie stock. But then, and here is the first unique, delicious twist, you add fire roasted tomatoes instead of the plain kind. Fire roasted…how delicious does that sound already?? Since this is a Roasted Red Pepper Tomato soup, I thought adding fire roasted tomatoes would be a nice addition, and ohhh man it was. So then you let this delicious soup simmer away while your red peppers are roasting and charring in the oven. Finish the soup off by pureeing all of this deliciousness together and just sit there and watch the color turn burnt orange as everything blends together into a thick, slightly spicy, comforting bowl of happiness :).

And then there’s the grilled cheese croutons…who doesn’t love tomato soup and grilled cheese? Come on…it’s a classic combo. I always like to basically use my soup as a “dip” for grilled cheese sandwiches. Then once the sandwich is gone, I will finish the soup on it’s own, wishing the entire time that I still had more grilled cheese. So that was the inspiration for this! Rather than dipping the grilled cheese in the soup, there are little cubes of grilled cheese in there already so you can eat everything together.

And here’s the other thing…this soup is SO healthy! All that goes into it is fresh veggies, canned tomatoes, chicken stock, and Greek yogurt…So good for you! The grilled cheese croutons use whole wheat bread and just a little cheese, but if you want to omit those to make it even healthier, you absolutely can! They are totally optional. One night we had the soup with the croutons, and the next night we just had it with a salad. And it was absolutely delicious both ways. Or if you want to go the less healthy option, you could double the amount of croutons. Or triple them. You see where I’m going here. Do whatever your heart desires!

I’ll tell you something though…the soup doesn’t taste healthy. It doesn’t taste like you are eating veggies and chicken stock…it tastes just as good as any junk food. You won’t feel like you are making any sacrifices, which I love. Those recipes are my favorites.

This is the kind of soup I would love to curl up under a blanket with on a cold, rainy day. Seth’s biggest comment on this soup was how comforting it was. He was standing over the pot eating spoonful after spoonful before he finally got a bowl of it and sat down.

A healthy, flavorful, comforting meal. Doesn’t get better than that!

Here is the recipe:

**Note: you can easily make this soup gluten free by leaving out the croutons, and you can easily make it vegan by leaving out the croutons and the Greek yogurt**

This was pretty good, but definitely needed more flavor. I added an extra clove of garlic, garlic powder, and extra oregano, salt and pepper–not crazy amounts, just enough to bring the flavor up so the soup wasn’t as sweet from the tomatoes. Fun to make and not hard!

This soup sounds amazing! Love that you mixed it up and added roasted red pepper and greek yogurt. And those croutons! I want to eat all of them!Jessica | A Happy Food Dance recently posted…lettuce wraps with hoisin glazed shrimp